A Knight in Shining Skyforge Steel
by petrichorister
Summary: After a nasty battle with some trolls, Ria is injured, Vilkas goes beserk, and they find their comfort in each other. From the Skyrim Kink Meme. One-shot. Post "Practice Makes Perfect," but you don't necessarily need to read that first.


From the SKM:  
_My latest save file, I've actually put off on joining the Companions (that's normally the first thing I do once I hit Whiterun...), and I see Vilkas and Ria everywhere together. Fighting sabre cats in Riften, or kicking a troll's ass outside Dawnguard, etc etc.  
__So yes. I want them. Fluff, smut, angst, don't care. This could be before/during/after the DB joins them, don't care. I ship these two now, and I just want to read some stuff with them.  
__Only squicks would be bathroom fluids.  
__Bonus round: Ria gets her silly self knocked out and Vilkas gets all territorial and shifts to kill the rest of the -insert enemy here-. Whether she wakes up to see him, or is completely unaware (being knocked out and all) would be up to A!A_

I went for the bonus round! Since OP said it could be fluff, smut, or angst... I went with all three (though it's pretty tame, insofar as smut goes). While I was writing this, I did consider it to be post-"Practice Makes Perfect." While I certainly encourage you all to read that one (if only for my own selfish reasons), it's not necessary to understand what's going on here. After some minor editing, I'm posting it here and on AO3, primarily because I find LJ difficult to navigate.  
As always, reviews are much appreciated, especially since this was written rather quicker than I usually write and I might have missed something in editing.  
All characters/locations property of Bethesda.

* * *

Every warrior had something they hated to deal with. Farkas had his problems with spiders, Aela had spitting matches with sabre cats, Kodlak couldn't stand the sight of hagravens, and Skjor had issues with Falmer.

Vilkas had frost trolls.

In the northern reaches of Eastmarch, after clearing out a cave of bears with Ria (at least, he reminded himself, he got to see the pure, unadulterated joy on her face when she finished off the last of them), the pair encountered not one, not two, but _three_ damned frost trolls. Whatever strange sense of humor the gods had, he wasn't sure he understood it.

"Shh," he cautioned to his shield-sister before the trolls caught sight of them. Ria listened, and readied herself by his side. Neither of them were ones to avoid any sort of battle, nor were any of the Companions, but Vilkas still felt the tell-tale rush of adrenaline as one of the trolls cocked its ugly head towards them. _Here goes nothing_...

Vilkas raised his sword in preparation as the troll barreled towards them at full speed. Ria fired off arrows next to him, and by the time the troll reached them, it only took a few hits of the greatsword to bring the beast down. _One down, two to go..._

The second troll caught the sound of the fight, and soon was running down towards the Companions with the third troll right behind. Ria's arrows continued to blaze through the air. She wasn't the archer Aela was, but she was getting better with a bow, and for that Vilkas was grateful. Not just grateful. He was _proud_. He had seen her come this far, and, really, she could hold her own without him. As he watched her fire away, gratefulness and pride and a third emotion (which stirred in the pit of his belly and below the hem of his leathers and which he believed was too inappropriate to name) all swirled inside him.

The problem with these emotions, he soon discovered, was that they were distractions. Enough of a distraction, in fact, to allow one of the trolls to reach Ria and knock her aside with an audible _thunk_. She collapsed to the ground after flying through the air a short ways, hitting the earth with enough force to knock her out.

_No_.

Vilkas reared his sword in fury as the troll turned to him. The damned things were nearly impossible to take out without fire, but he'd give it his best shot if it was the last thing he did. Damn it all, she was _not_ going to die, not if he had anything to say about it.

It had been a while since he'd felt this sort of anger in battle. He'd unleashed his rage when Kodlak had died, but so had everyone. That had been an attack on his own ground, leaving one of his own dead. This, _this_ was different. Strictly speaking, he was passing through the trolls' territory, but, also strictly speaking, the trolls attacked first. And they'd had the nerve to attack someone precious to him, an unforgivable offense.

For half a moment, he regretted that he'd given up the beast blood. If he had that, he would be twice as strong against the trolls, and he'd defeat them easily. Then again, he might have lost control if that were the case. He decided not to think too long on the matter.

His sword swung everywhere as he attacked the giant beasts. In retrospect, he would realize how reckless his fighting had been, how his adrenaline got the better of him when he should have been strategically planning the battle, but in the moment it mattered little. It seemed to be working out for the best, as one of the trolls fell to the ground before him. The other was beginning to falter, and, with a few more hacks of his sword, it, too, crumbled to the earth.

Ria.

Ria was still collapsed to the ground, just a short distance from himself. Vilkas ran to her, not caring about the pain in his side. Maybe some bruising or a broken rib was what he'd gotten, but she was faring far worse. "Vilkas?" Gods, was her voice really that weak?

"I'm here." He helped her to sit up. "It's just a short walk to Windhelm. You can make it. I've got you."

He had to keep her safe. They had to make it to Windhelm, had to get healing potions before the shops closed and then find a room in one of the taverns. There was no other option.

She had to live.

* * *

The walk to Windhelm was probably much shorter than Ria imagined it was. To be fair, a brooding Vilkas and a knock to the head weren't the best combination for getting places quickly. Vilkas seemed to have trouble talking or doing anything other than focusing on the path right ahead of them. When she joked about him being her knight in shining armor, like in all those silly fairy stories her mother told her growing up, he didn't respond, save for a resigned "hmmph."

They reached the city before sunset, and Vilkas left her in the inn while he ran to the apothecary. Apothecary, alchemist... one of those things. Somewhere he could get healing potions. She felt fine, but she imagined he'd need them. He'd limped the whole way there.

When he returned to the inn, he wasn't limping any more. She guessed he'd already taken a healing potion or two from the bag of them he carried. Without saying a word, he pulled a rather strong one out of the bag and tossed it to her.

Though she still felt she didn't need it, she sipped it to humor him. To her surprise, she could feel the magic working away at a sprained rib, and a dull throbbing in her head that she hadn't even realized was there suddenly disappeared. "Thank you," she said as cheerfully as she could manage, hoping to coax a smile out of him.

The smile never came, but at least he said something. "Have you eaten anything? Do you need me to get any food for you?"

"I picked up something at the bar while you were getting the healing potions. There's a sweetroll here for you, if you'd like," she said, gesturing to the platter on the table.

Vilkas didn't take the sweetroll. He didn't even say a word as he grabbed his nightclothes out of his pack and walked behind the other side of the wardrobe to change. Not that it really blocked the view, nor did it really matter. As shield-siblings, she'd seen him in far more compromising situations than just having to remove his armor and slip on a tunic. His leathers didn't even come off. From where she sat, Ria could admire the muscles on his back in the brief interim in which he wore neither armor nor tunic, and, as much as she told herself not to stare, his leathers left little to the imagination.

She tried to turn her attention to something else, but there was little to turn her attention _to_. The room was rather small, with just a single bed. It was all the inn had. Ria didn't mind, as she'd had less comfortable sleeping arrangements in the past. If worse came to worst, the two could take turns sleeping, though she knew full well that Vilkas would refuse and, instead, would stay up the whole night.

When he emerged, she patted the spot next to her on the bed, motioning for him to sit down. He didn't, of course he didn't. Whatever happened earlier still had him upset. To be fair, she couldn't remember much. It could have been worse than she'd known. But they were alive, and the trolls weren't. How bad could it really have been?

He just looked so tense. His body was completely rigid, his eyes focused on a spot on the floor. He couldn't possibly stay like that all night. She'd just have to do something.

Slowly, she stood, all former aches gone, and she approached him. In retrospect, she would realize that wrapping her arms around a clearly upset warrior who was nearly a foot taller than her without any sort of warning was not necessarily the smartest idea, but at the moment it didn't matter. He needed comfort, and she was here for him. After his initial surprise, he relaxed in her grip and returned her embrace. He bent over, nuzzling his face into the space between her shoulder and her neck.

"There, there," she whispered. "It's alright. I'm right here. Tell me what's wrong."

"I thought I was going to lose you," he murmured, his face still buried in the crook of her neck. "Back there, with the trolls... You fell, and I feared you might have died."

Ria stroked his hair as his grip tightened around her. She really hadn't been out for that long, had she? She didn't feel any pain now; at the most, she'd been groggy when she'd woken to see the dead trolls and Vilkas standing over her. Whatever injuries she'd received were minor. Surely a knock to the head couldn't match the scar on her thigh from where she'd been bitten by a bear years before. She was hardier than everyone seemed to think.

She wiggled herself back from his embrace just a bit, just enough to get him to look at her. There were tears just beginning to form in his eyes as she cupped his face in her hands. "You're not going to lose me." Her voice was clear as she tried to calm him. "I promise."

No sooner had the words left her mouth than Vilkas leaned forward and kissed her. His lips were hungry against her. It wasn't like the brief, sweet sort of kisses she was used to from him, the kind that showed affection but also displayed a certain detachment that was appropriate for other Companions to see. It was fierce, and passionate, and definitely the sort of thing that he would never do in public. All she could think to do was open her mouth to him and let him deepen the kiss as much as he pleased. He took her invitation gladly, running his tongue along hers.

And then they were moving, her legs walking backwards of their own accord, until she felt the edge of the bed against her calves, and the pair collapsed on the bed in a heap of tangled limbs. Vilkas continued to kiss her, pressing his lips to her mouth, to her cheek, to her jaw.

For her part, Ria was running her hands down his neck, to his muscled chest, over anything she could reach. She'd hugged him before, sure, felt his torso pressed tight against hers, but that was nothing like this. Now she got the chance to appreciate his form.

The kisses he now placed along her jaw were feverish, frenzied. His rough stubble scratched her pleasantly as she tilted her head back for easier access. His rough palms glided along her ribcage and down to her waist, grasping at her as if to make sure she was still there.

Ria was caught off-guard when he pulled away. "Do you want this?" he asked. For all the rough emotion in his voice, his eyes showed nothing but sincerity. "We don't have to do anything at all. I can even leave, if you want me to."

With the tips of her fingers, Ria nudged a stray lock of hair behind Vilkas' ear. "I want this." Her hands cupped his face as she gazed up at him, noting the insecurity marring his features and wondering where it came from. She was no idiot. She knew he'd had no issue bedding women in the past, if the sounds that used to come from his room were anything to be believed, but the look in his eyes now was that of a man who feared he'd lose everything. "I want you."

"I didn't pick up any of the potion."

"I can get some in the morning," she reassured him.

"If you wish for me to stop-"

"I'll tell you."

That seemed to be all the encouragement he needed from there on out, as his lips sought hers once again. His hands slid under her shift, feeling for the mounds of her breasts. She wasn't a large woman, certainly the shortest at Jorrvaskr, but she wasn't tiny for an Imperial, either. Maybe her bust wasn't the size of an average Nord woman's, but it was enough to make him groan into her mouth.

His lips descended to her neck, kissing every inch of it, while his hands started to tug her shift upwards on her body, exposing her to the cool air. She pulled his tunic up in turn, and, soon, they had to break apart to fully remove the final barriers between them. Before he could kiss her again, her hands flew to the laces of his leathers, and his went to help her. Another minute, and they were both completely bare to one another.

Looking at him now was so different from earlier, when he'd been changing. Yes, she'd admired his back, and on several occasions before then she'd seen his bare torso, but that was all viewed with a sort of detached admiration. It couldn't compare to running her fingertips over his chest, to letting her gaze follow that lightly matted patch of hair running from the center of his chest to the parts she _hadn't_ seen before.

Once again, Vilkas' lips attached themselves to her neck, sucking and nipping lightly. One of his hands slipped between Ria's legs, softly rubbing against her folds and causing her to buck up. His touch was light, just enough to make her moan quietly. His thumb grazed along her clit as one of his fingers delved into her and made sure she was fully aroused.

Ria didn't waste time fully exploring him. Tonight wasn't about exploration. Tonight was about release. Tonight was a culmination and a beginning; the culmination of whatever walls they were holding up, and the beginning of... of... well, whatever she could call this. Maybe it would just be sex, but the urgency in Vilkas' movements made her think it would be something far deeper than that. Not that she was complaining.

It wasn't long before his hand withdrew and he lined himself up at her entrance. "You're sure about this?" he rasped, barely loud enough for her to make out.

"Yes."

Vilkas pushed into her slowly, peppering her face with kisses all the while. Once he was hilted inside, his lips found hers and he kissed her deeply.

As the two found their rhythm, he retracted from the kiss. Ria immediately wished he hadn't, but her displeasure was short-lived, as he reached a hand between them to rub at her clit. His fingers were more insistent than they'd been before, not just there to tease her, but instead working with the intention of coaxing an orgasm out of her as soon as possible.

Eventually, their climaxes caught up with them. Vilkas buried himself in her as his hand worked her furiously. When she finally clenched around him, he spilled inside her, releasing a groan. The two lay there panting for some time, enjoying the last waves of pleasure, until he pulled out and rolled over, pulling her with him.

"Better?" she asked as he caught his breath. When he nodded, she smiled. "Thank you, again, for saving my sorry hide earlier against those trolls," she murmured, laying her head on his chest. Her finger dragged lazily over his stomach as she closed her eyes. "My knight in shining Skyforge steel, you are."

His quiet laughter in response was the last thing she heard before sleep claimed her.

* * *

When Vilkas woke, he was almost embarrassed to see how much room he was taking up on the bed. Ria's sleeping form, however, didn't seem to mind. She was curled against his chest, using him as a makeshift pillow, as the only real pillow was being used by him. One of her legs was folded over his, unintentionally keeping him in place until she woke.

She was so peaceful, and her hair was perfectly mussed. A small bruise was visible on her neck, from where he had marked her as his own. Perhaps he was no longer a wolf, but that didn't mean he lacked the urge to warn others that she was his.

For a moment, his mind flitted to his room at Jorrvaskr, to the bed there that was big enough for two, and to the trunk in which he kept valuable items. Maybe, just maybe, it would be time soon for him to open that trunk, and pull out something he thought he would not have to use for quite some time yet. He knew he could get used to waking up with her next to him.

As if she sensed his thoughts, Ria's eyes fluttered open, seemingly confused for half a second before the memory of the night before kicked in. She smiled as she turned her head up to look at him. "Good morning," she mumbled, her eyes still half-lidded with sleep.

"Good morning," he replied with a smile. He rubbed his thumb absentmindedly over her bare shoulder. "You look very nice like that. I have half a mind not to let you leave the bed."

"I'd like that," she said as she stretched her back and sat up, "but I have to find that alchemist, and you never ate dinner. You must be starving." On cue, his stomach let out a loud rumble. "Come on."

She climbed out of bed and grabbed her clothes laying on the floor. As she dressed, Vilkas watched her in amusement. While he watched, his brain flitted back and forth over the night before and nights to come. He realized he absolutely would have to open that trunk of valuables.

It was time to dust off that Amulet of Mara he kept hidden away.


End file.
